Chapter 8: The Hall

On Wednesday morning I went to get coffee and walked in on my boyfriend being kissed.

The lodge's front hall was a long room of dark wood and mounted fish.

There was a bar at one end and a wall of framed Frost family photographs.

Henrik stood under a twelve-pound walleye with a mug in his hand.

Calla stood in front of him in a silk robe, her hands on his chest and her mouth on his.

For one second, I could not move.

My feet stuck to the floor.

Then Henrik dropped the mug.

It hit the floorboards and burst into a dozen white pieces, and he took Calla by both wrists and pushed her off him.

He did it gently, but he did it hard.

"No," he said.

His voice rang through the hall.

"No, Calla. Never again."

Three of the guests had come in behind me with coffee and croissants, and they stopped in the doorway.

Behind them stood Kaspar's mother in her lilac sweater, holding a clipboard.

Calla stumbled back a step, and her face went through four expressions in a second.

She settled on shock.

"Henrik, honey, you were the one who..."

"I was not."

"You pulled me in!"

"I did not touch you."

"Everybody saw you," Calla said, and turned, and found me.

Her eyes brightened.

"Oh, Astrid, thank God."

"He has something of a problem, and I'm so sorry you had to see this."

I walked across the room one step at a time.

My legs worked.

That surprised me.

I stopped at the shards of the mug and looked at them, and then at her.

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